“Oh—before I forget,” Dig said, digging around off-camera. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I ran into that human khaki pant at McGreevy’s.”
A cold pinprick walked down my spine. “What?”
“Nick,” he clarified, then winced. “Sorry. I should’ve opened softer. He was having drinks with a bunch of his bros. I may have… gently introduced my fist to his face.”
“You punched him?” I sat up so fast the phone dipped, giving Dig an accidental tour of the guestroom ceiling and probably whatever was up my nostrils. “Diego!”
“Lightly!” He held up his hand. “As someone who has had several plastic surgery visits, you never know whose nose cost more than a Ferrari.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he was asking about you. He’d heard a rumor—don’t ask me from where because I protect your secrets like the Holy Grail—and wanted to know if you were in Savannah and if you were, quote, ‘okay’. Which is rich.”
My skin went too hot and then too cold. “And you didn’t think to tell me when it happened?”
Dig’s mouth softened. “I didn’t want to put him in your head if he wasn’t going to be in your life. He doesn’t deserve rent-free space. But. If he shows up—call me. Or text the avocado emoji, we’ll make it a code.”
I exhaled, long and uneven. “Okay.”
“You okay?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But also… maybe.”
He smiled. “There she is.”
We stayed a little longer, talking about nothing and everything: Sutton’s drama at the catering company, Magnolia’s latest verbal takedown of a board member who thought “content creator” meant “girl with ring light,” the way my mother’s voice still lived in the corners of my brain like black mold. I was telling their stories like they belonged to me. Like I belonged to them. Finally Dig checked his watch and made a face.
“Go take pictures,” he said. “You’re hotter when you’re looking at beautiful things.”
“Bossy.”
“Gorgeous,” he winked.
We hung up and the apartment fell back into its expensive hush. On the black screen, my reflection looked like a woman I almost recognized—tired, sure. But still standing.
I closed the laptop and sat there for a minute, palms heavy on my knees. Charlie’s face tried to walk into my head and I pushed it away. I thought about patterns. About running and holding and letting go. About how many times I’d mistaken momentum for meaning. About how a man could look at you like a promise and then forget your name when the lights came back on.
I also thought about the night of the fundraiser—the way Charlie had hovered a breath behind me without touching me, the way my body had known he was there before my brain caught up. How safe I’d felt with him nearby.
But safe is different than saved. And I was very tired of waiting to be rescued from a life I had built myself.
“Okay,” I told the room, and possibly the hidden cameras I still wasn’t convinced weren’t planted. “New plan.”
Nancy Reagan blinked one eye, unimpressed.
I slung my camera over my shoulder, jammed my feet into sneakers without untying them like a complete menace to society, and grabbed a granola bar that tasted like sugaredcardboard. In the lobby, Hoyt asked if I was “headed out to make some magic,” which feels like a thing men say when they want to be supportive but also have no idea what you do for a living. I smiled anyway.
Outside, the air had that clean-edged chill Savannah gets right before sunset—cool enough to pretend it’s winter, warm enough to call yourself dramatic for pretending. The river breathed. Tourists argued with map apps. Somewhere a street musician was in a committed relationship with “Stand by Me.”
I started toward the water and let my camera find its way into my hands. The first few shots are always bad on purpose, like stretches before a run. A lamppost with a halo of gnats. The curve of a cast-iron balcony. A forgotten ribbon caught in a live oak.
The city gave me back my eye in increments. A woman fixing her lipstick in a storefront reflection, not looking at herself so much as gathering. A boy teaching his little sister how to skip stones and almost hurling his whole body into the river, causing a complete chaotic tumble with the supervising adults. Two men sharing a carton of fries on a bench, the comfortable quiet of people who have known each other for a lifetime.
I found a sliver of light leaning across the cobblestones and stood in it until I warmed. I took a photo of my shoes and laughed at myself. I let my shoulders drop. The noise in my head dialed down from football stadium to coffee shop.
At the railing, the river shrugged by, heavy and full of life. I focused on the shimmer where the current folded over itself and clicked three times, then checked the screen. The exposures were a hair dark. I adjusted, tried again. Better.
A couple wandered into frame and didn’t notice me, which is how I like it—her elbow hooked through his like it was a promise they knew how to keep. I caught them in the corner of the shotand didn’t hate the ache that rose in my throat. It meant I was still here. It meant I still wanted what I’d always wanted.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. For a second my whole stupid body hoped. I glanced down.
Dig:Remember: avocado emoji if the gremlin appears.
